For starters, I just discovered this game about a week or so ago in a random Wikipedia search of info on the Lord of the Rings (mainly cuz I just got my extended edition Blu-Rays). After reading about the game, and watching the tutorial videos, I realized I had to have it! Having it double as a solo game made it all the more appealing.

Well, my "long wait" is finally over, as my set arrived today in the mail. I dived right in (after all, I spent the past few days devouring the rules, listening to podcasts, reading the official and unofficial FAQs, watching a sample solo game on YouTube, etc). Like everyone else, I am impressed with the artwork and quality of everything that went into the making of the game (but yeah, as others have observed, the cards are a little thin).

So, after assembling the pre-made decks (and including 3 copies of Gandalf each), I tore into the first scenario. I started with Tactics and went on down the line.

After reading about how Tactics has a hard time managing Threat levels and that it's hard to solo, I expected to get murdered with this deck. Quite the contrary, however; this was my best performing deck. I got all the way to the last stage and finally fell when my Threat level reached 50.

Next was the Leadership deck. I can't even recall if I made it to the second stage of the quest, when all of my heroes fell.

Lore was up next, and again, my heroes fell in short order, and the Staging Area was flush with locations.

Lastly, was Spirit. Monsters overwhelmed me pretty early on and I knew I was doomed (I didn't even bother to finish).

So, my thoughts? Well, I do love the game already. Part of my problem, most certainly with the Tactics deck (as it was my first go-through), was forgetting my heroes abilities (ex: Thalin dealing one damage to each enemy as it is revealed by the encounter deck), or that of attachments (ex: Horn of Gondor: adding 1 resource to my pool when a character leaves play), or the When Revealed effect of monsters (though, gotta admit, that probably helped more than hurt! haha) during the Questing phase. After my first game, I was much better at remembering to look at each hero/attachment/monster, but oddly enough, I did worse.

My Shadow cards were, more often than not, harmless (I suppose that's why this scenario is rated 1? More locations to draw as Shadows and/or fewer Shadow effects in general?). Gandalf, as I'm sure he does for everyone, got me out of some tight squeezes (though, of course, never enough to win).

I think the last problem was simply the fact that my decks weren't shuffled enough, as lame as that sounds. When I would go through my remaining deck afterwards (i.e. after getting my ass handed to me), many cards were still side-by-side, just like they came in the packaging (my two Citadel Plates were sitting on the bottom of my deck. Boo.). That's easily fixable, even if I thought I shuffled sufficiently.

So, I'm 0-4 and eager to go at it again. Maybe even venture into a dual sphere deck. ;-)

I know I had some questions, and probably should have written them down. But I do recall one:

One of the Shadow effects required me to remove all Attachments that I controlled. The only Attachment on the table was a Forest Snare on Ungoliant's Spawn, so it was removed (I assume that was the correct thing to do). But, does Ungoliant's Spawn then join in on that Attack phase? I thought not, as I assumed attackers had to be declared first and couldn't during the middle of the phase. Either way, I lost. But still curious about that one, regardless.

Onward and upward (and hopefully to an eventual victory)!

This game is a lot more of a puzzle game than an adventure game—a really well-themed puzzle, where the world of Tolkien breathes through every moment, but a puzzle regardless. Going in guns-a-blazing without a concrete plan is the most sure-fire way to get your ass handed to you by the encounter deck.

As for your situation, you did do the right thing in discarding the Forest Snare.

And I think the creature would have attacked you. Reading through the rules section for Combat: Resolving Enemy Attacks, there's no phase called "declare all attacks"; you go through enemies one-by-one until you run out of ones that can attack you. Indeed, the snared enemy card is still engaged with you and thus should have been dealt its face-down shadow card along with the rest of the engaged enemies regardless of whether the enemy can (currently) attack or not.

So the unsnared enemy still attacks you for that round (and even has a shadow card dealt to it for that possible eventuality!), although you do get to choose in what order it attacks you.